Notes on Basic Buddhist Thought

Background Notes on Basic Buddhist Thought

Compiled with Beginner’s Mind by Carol Grever — May, 2013

Introduction

Our Sangha’s challenge to grasp Thich Nhat Hanh’s concept of “interdependence” in The Miracle of Mindfulness prompted this effort to clarify some major points of Buddhist thought. Nhat Hanh’s book was originally written as a “long letter” to monks in Viet Nam, all of whom would have been thoroughly schooled in Buddhist ontology. The following notes seek to define some of those seminal ideas from a Western standpoint. My information is drawn from teachings of many Buddhist masters and countless books, but the notes here are absolutely a work in progress. I offer them to you in the hope that some familiarity with the most basic points of Buddhist thought will provide a common ground for future studies and discussions.

-Carol Grever

Background on the Historical Buddha

Who was The Buddha? The word buddha in Sanskrit and Pali means, simply, “awakened one” and refers to a person who has achieved the enlightenment that leads to release from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) and has thereby attained complete liberation (nirvana).

The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, was born approximately 2,500 years ago, son of a prince of the Shakyas, in what is now Nepal in the Himalayas. His name was Siddhartha, his family name Gautama. With his wealthy, protective family, he grew to manhood, married and fathered a child, utterly shielded from the painful reality of the world by his father. When his eyes were opened to that pain around age 28, he had his “first awakening” to old age, sickness, and death. He left his opulent life and his family and became a wandering ascetic for seven years, depriving himself almost to the point of death. At that point of self-mortification, he left the ascetic path, adopting instead the “Middle Way,” which teaches avoidance of all extremes—neither over-indulgence in sense pleasures nor self-mortification and asceticism. He achieved his complete enlightenment as The Buddha sitting in meditation under the Bodhi tree. Bodhi literally means “awakened.” His Great Awakening was at about age 35. For the next 45 years, he carried his teachings on the Four Noble Truths, first to the forest monks in his initial Deer Park Teaching (“Turning the Wheel of the Dharma”). He then spent the rest of his life as a wandering teacher, ending with his Parinirvana at age 80. This was the final death, total extinction, without another rebirth into samsara. His last words to his followers are said to be, Ehi pasico, “Come, see for yourself.” This sentence is a clue to the experiential nature of his teachings: Each person walks his own path to awakening or enlightenment.

The Four Noble Truths, and The Eightfold Path

This teaching is the touchstone of the Buddha’s Dharma—his body of teachings. It was his first teaching for the monks at Deer Park, right after his enlightenment.

I. All beings suffer (Skt.—duhkha; Pali —dukkha) One may think of dukkha as physical or mental pain or as disappointment. A shorthand way to look at it: You want what you can’t have; you get what you don’t want; or you get what you want and then you don’t want it anymore.

II. Origin of suffering is craving or attachment to that which is impermanent.

Nothing solid, all is in constant flux. “The thing IS change.”

III. Cessation of suffering through non-attachment, no clinging to the impermanent. It’s about letting go.

Buddhism as a philosophy or religion occurred only after the Buddha’s death. To preserve the body of teachings, 500 monks gathered and Ananda, The Buddha’s personal attendant, recited all of the teachings. It was an oral tradition which was eventually written down in the sutras (literally, “thread”), which became the Pali Canon. The early sutras begin with “Thus have I heard,” quoting Ananda’s recitation. Eventually, 18 Buddhist sects grew up with different interpretations of the teachings. Of those original sects, only one, Theravada, survives today.

Hinayana or Theravada, earliest form of Buddhism, called the “Small Vehicle,” was based mostly on the sutras. It is the closest approximation today of earliest Buddhist practice. (Skt. Yana, means vehicle in which one travels toward enlightenment—bodhi)

Emphasis on personal enlightenment through severe self-denial, discipline, and abstinence from all forms of pleasure.

Tends to regard The Buddha as a deity

Vipassana, Insight Meditation, prevalent

Pali terminology is used, rather than the later Sanskrit. Theravada is also called the Pali School.

Mahayana,“Great Vehicle,” developed 500 years after the Buddha’s death. It presented a many-sided approach to open the way to liberate all beings. It became the Buddhist tradition with the most followers and remains so now.

The Buddha principle, Buddha-nature, bussho, that isimmanent in all beings becomes more important than the person of the historic Buddha (Shakyamuni Buddha). Emphasis is on the historic Buddha as a teacher, not a god.

The Middle Way js generally a term describing the path of the historic Buddha, which avoids the extremes of over-indulgence in sense pleasures on the one hand and self-mortification and asceticism on the other.

Mahayana Buddhism is an expression of The Middle Way. “Not too tight, not too loose” is the principle.

The Eight-fold Path is the manifestation of the Middle Way. The Deer Park teaching right after The Buddha’s enlightenment is referred to as the “turning of the wheel of Dharma.” The wheel has 8 spokes representing the 8 elements of the Path.

The Lojong teachings are from the Mahayana, including the advanced Tonglen (sending and taking) meditation practice.

The Mahayana emphasizes compassion or karuna in the ideal of the Bodhisattva (enlightened being). The gist of the Bodhisattva vow is “Exchange self for other.”

Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity developed at about the same time and share some similar concepts, e.g. The Golden Rule.

Lay people, not just monastics, can attain nirvana, i.e. the realization that by one’s very nature one is liberated and inseparable from absolute reality.

Mahayana spread from India to Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan. The most important Mahayana school in China was the Pure Land school, which further developed in Japan as Zen.

Vajrayana,“Diamond Vehicle.”. Originally, as lightning or thunderbolt (vajra), the weapon attributed to the Hindu god Indra. This is the source of the name of Tantric Buddhism, Vajrayana.A magic-oriented school of Buddhism that grew out of Mahayana and appeared parallel to the development of Tantra in Hinduism.

It is guru-based, characterized by a psychological method based on highly developed ritual practices and initiations given by an authorized master to eliminate all duality. The “crazy wisdom” tradition of the Shambhala community is one manifestation.

Among the techniques in such initiations are recitation of mantras, contemplation of mandalas, and special ritual gestures (mudra).

Vajrayana today flourishes primarily in Tibetan Buddhism.

The Four Immeasurables (Brahma Vihara)

The four are limitless kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. The practice encourages these qualities in your thoughts and sends them out in all directions to all people to feel yourself connected with everyone, everywhere.

The Theravadan tradition particularly values the Metta-Sutta which is recited daily by monastics and contains the root text for this practice. A translation of that passage is “May all beings be happy and at their ease! May they be joyous and live in safety!” There are many variations of the Metta practice and you can devise your own way to express the four elements.

Pema Chodron teaches it this way:

May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

May we be free of suffering and the root of suffering.

May we know the joy that is free of struggle.

May we dwell in the great equanimity, free of obsession, aggression, and

prejudice.

The “Three Poisons” appear in the more traditional words of the last line: “May we dwell in the great equanimity, free of passion, aggression, and ignorance.” Note that ignorance here implies “ignoring” that which is essential, not lack of education.

The Five Aggregates (skt. skandhas)

An aggregate is a collection of disparate elements. The Five Aggregates are the qualities that embody our “personality” and include barriers to happiness and enlightenment, such as ignorance, aversion, cravings, attachments, and the delusion of a separate self. We act them out through our thoughts, speech, and action. These are factors that lead to suffering. The well-known Heart Sutra references them. The five skandhas or aggregates are

Form

Feelings

Perceptions

Mental formations

Consciousness

The Three Jewels(skt.. Triratna, three precious ones) Also called the Three Refuges

These are the essential components of Buddhism: The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha: Teacher, teachings, and spiritual community, or, the Awakened One, the truth expounded by him, and the followers living in accordance with this truth. These three objects of veneration are considered places of refuge. The Refuge Vow one takes in becoming a Buddhist is: “I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Dharma; I take refuge in the Sangha.” This vow is often repeated during regular meditation practice.

Hungry Ghost

This is a teaching metaphor. The Sanskrit word is Preta, literally, “departed one.” The traditional image is insatiable ghosts that suffer the torment of hunger in their afterlife existence because of their former greed, envy, and jealousy. They are pictured with immense bellies, but mouths as tiny as the eye of a needle. The teaching is that their hunger can never be satisfied and they will suffer endlessly. This metaphor is particularly helpful to comprehend the “root of suffering” as craving and clinging, i.e. “attachment.”

Om Mani Padme Hum

A mantra is a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation. The oldest mantra in Tibetan Buddhism is Om Mani Padme Hum. It is an expression of the basic attitude of compassion (bodhichitta—awakened heart) and the longing for liberation {Nirvana) for the sake of all sentient beings. OM and HUM are seed syllables, not translatable. MANI PADME means “jewel in the lotus” and refers to enlightenment mind.

The mantra is associated particularly with Avalokiteshvara, the Mahayana “Bodhisattva of Great Compassion,” along with his other manifestations, e.g. Tara in Tibet and Guan Yin (or Kwan Yin) in China and Kannon in Japan. Avalokiteshvara’s name means “He who hears the outcries of the world.” He is depicted as having a thousand arms to help those in distress. Tara, Guan Yin and Kannon are depicted as female manifestations of compassion.

Context for the Six Perfections or Paramitas

The Buddha taught about three basic aspects of human existence:

Moral Conduct: For example, generosity (Skt. dana), and the monastic requirements (Five Precepts): Not to kill, not to steal, not to lie, not to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and not to use intoxicants.

One of the Buddha’s first disciples summarized Buddhism’s principles in this way: “To abstain from evil, to do what is good, to purify the mind: This is the teaching of all of the Buddhas.”

These are the virtues developed on the path or Way of the Bodhisattva (Skt. for enlightenment being). The Bodhisattva aspires to exchange self for other, to put compassion for others ahead of his/her own benefit. In Mahayana, the Bodhisattva systematically practices the Six Perfections or Paramitas, with actions informed by compassion {karuna) and wisdom {prajna). To take this path is a major Mahayana tradition, sealed with a solemn vow of service to others:

And now, as long as space endures

As long as beings can be found

May I continue likewise to remain

To drive away the sorrows of the world.

(Verse by Shantideva, 8th Century Monk)

The Six Perfections (Skt. Paramitas, “that which has reached the other shore.”)

Generosity (Skt. dana) Includes kindness and compassion

Discipline (Skt. shila)

Patience (Skt. kshanti)

Energy or Exertion (Skt. virya) Sometimes translated enthusiasm

Meditation (Skt.dhyana)

Wisdom (Skt. prajna)

In The Buddha’s teaching metaphor of the wide river, these qualities are the conveyances to the other shore, or Nirvana. These six qualities and the action they engender are the heart of Mahayana practice and the guiding ideals of Buddhists. Note that our own intention and effort are needed to “reach the other shore.”

The Three Marks of Existence

Impermanence Conditionality, concatenation, i.e. linkage of events or objects. Consider the metaphor of a tree. It looks stable and solid, but each cell, each atom is changing every moment. Like everything else, the tree is “conditional” because each tiny change conditions the whole for the next minute change, and so on and on. Professor Mark Muesse of Rhodes College summarized the point: “Change is not the thing. The thing is change.” Everything in the universe is like that and it is the nature of Samsaric existence. This is how I interpret “groundlessness.”

Non-self or No-self(Skt., anatman; Pali, anatta) Emptiness or insubstantiability (egolessness). One of the central teachings of Buddhism is the assertion that no self exists in the sense of a permanent, eternal, integral, and independent substance. Thus the ego is no more than a transitory and changeable empirical personality formed from the skandhas (the five aggregates—form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness). From these skandhas, we have created the illusion of a separate self, which is a myth.The personality is the conventional ego of everyday experience that obstructs deep insight into the Four Noble Truths. Realization of emptiness (shunyata) or egolessness is the path to nirvana. “Just like me” is a Mahayana practice in exchanging self for other, the work of the “Bodhisattva in training,” in Pema Chodron’s phrase.

3. Nirvana.Unutterable, ineffable, unconditioned state of awareness of all that is (peace). Originally, Nirvana (Pali, nibbana) literally meant “extinction,” like putting out a candle. That meant the end of repeated birth and death and an end of the determining effect of karma and samsara. It was entry into another mode of existence and promised the cessation of suffering (dukkha).

In evolving Mahayana teaching, Nirvana is understood as oneness with the Absolute. It is described as True Nature dwelling in the experience of the Whole, the Absolute. It implies bliss in recognizing one’s identity with the Absolute, and in freedom from attachment to illusions, affects, and desires. The Buddha declined to make any statement about the nature of Nirvana. Interpretations of Buddhist followers have varied over the centuries and continue to do so now. The Buddha offered the path in his teachings, but his final words were, “Come and see for yourself.” (Pali, ehi pasico).

Samadhi and The Practice of Sitting Meditation

Shamatha vipashyana is mindfulmess-awareness meditation in the Tibetan tradition. It is a gradual calming of mental activity practiced with the intent of Samadhi, a nondualistic state in which the consciousness of the experiencing “subject” (meditator) becomes one with the experienced “object” (the whole).

Sitting meditation practice is usually done seated on a cushion on the floor, back erect, legs crossed, hands cupped together on the lap or resting on the thighs. Shamatha means “peaceful abiding” or “dwelling in tranquility; vipashyana means “special insight.” Dwelling in tranquility calms the mind, while special insight points to a clear vision of genuine reality, or emptiness (Skt. Shunyata). Dwelling in tranquility is sometimes compared to a still, clear lake.

“Rest in Alaya, the Essence” is a helpful teaching slogan for meditation. Alaya Vijnan inSanskrit is literally “storehouse consciousness,” It is a central notion of Mahayana, which sees in it the basic consciousness of everything existing, the essence of the world, out of which everything arises. It is Ultimate Reality or “suchness” in the Zen term.

Joseph Campbell’s Contrast of Religions of East and West

Consideration of the Three Marks of Existence–Impermanence, No-Self, and Nirvana–leads one to an examination of the widely differing views of religions of the East and religions of the West. The following summary by Joseph Campbell is instructive.

Ultimate Reality is generally understood as an immanent (all-pervasive), impersonal energy within everything, the Ground of being. It is in-dwelling, inherent, permanently pervading the universe. It is the opposite of transcendent.

It is a fundamentally non-dualistic worldview (no separation) in which the spiritual path involves realizing one’s unity with this divine Source.

Master teachers in Eastern traditions, e.g. Confucius (Taoism) and The Buddha, considered this immanent Source to be a reality beyond all concepts and definitions. It is ineffable. Neither tried to describe it in detail, but rather concentrated on how to reach it, i.e. path.

The spiritual path involves realizing one’s unity with this divine source. It is a quest for wisdom over ignorance, by way of compassion. We aspire to awaken to who and what we actually already are.

There are many paths to realize Oneness, not just one single formula.

These Eastern spiritual traditions look in and down to find the Absolute.

Religions originating west of Iran (including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)

Ultimate reality (God) is a transcendent being, a personified entity above and outside the created world.

God has personhood and is understood as Creator. Humans are merely creatures, thus a fundamental dualism shapes this world view.

The spiritual path requires obedience to a set of divinely revealed doctrines, beliefs, and practices designed to bridge the chasm between us and a distant God, from whom we are separated by disobedience (“original sin” in Christianity).

The tension here is between sin and salvation.

Different western religions claim that theirs holds the only answer to find the transcendent God.

These religions look out and up to find God.

Buddhist Ontology and a Personal Inquiry

What about God? This is the question I posed to Pema Chodron. Pema’s answer was “It doesn’t come up.” But this question has always come up for me and has prompted a recurring personal inquiry as a converted Buddhist. The following summarizes some of my thoughts on the issue.

In the Buddha’s time, there were many “gods” which were subject to the principle of Impermanence. Like people, they evolved and changed in nature, sometimes benign and sometimes demonic. In Buddhist thought, the functional analog to God is Nirvana, which is the demarcation between the conditioned world of Samsara and the unconditioned Absolute.

Compare Meister Ekhardt’s view that God is an ineffable Absolute beyond human ability to conceive. (Cf. Absolute Reality, Buddha nature, Universal Spirit, Christ Spirit, Emerson’s Oversoul or Nature, Tibetan Buddhist’s Great Eastern Sun, Zen’s True Nature.) These terms are attempts to conceptualize the ineffable. We can’t put our minds around the Absolute and we have no language to capture it. It simply IS.

Buddhism is silent about a singular Supreme Being, in the monotheistic or anthropomorphic or personal sense. There is no teaching about one God as Christians envision it.

What the Buddha did teach is the metaphor of a wide river. On the near side is Samsaric existence; on the far side is Nirvana. The Dharma, including the six Paramitas and the Eight-fold Path, offers the way to reach the other side to join the ineffable Absolute. What that will be like, we just don’t know.